Austin Martin White
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Biography
Born 1984 in Detroit, MI, USA
Lives and works in Philadelphia, PA, USA
Austin Martin White’s artistic practice explores images that shape historical memory, drawing on archival research to examine questions of identity, race, and postcolonialism. By recontextualizing historical images and fragments, his work interrogates the ways in which history is constructed, mediated, and remembered, revealing the tensions between competing perspectives.
He has participated in group exhibitions at the Southampton Arts Center, New York; Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester; and The Jewish Museum, New York. White held his first solo exhibition at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, in 2022, followed by solo exhibitions at Petzel, New York, in 2023 and 2025, and his second solo exhibition at Capitain Petzel, Berlin, in 2026. In 2025, the first comprehensive monograph dedicated to his work was published by Petzel Gallery, New York (available at the gallery).
White’s work is part of the permanent collection of the Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. His work has been featured in numerous international publications, including The New York Times, Artforum, Texte zur Kunst, Flash Art, 032c, and The Observer, among others.
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Austin Martin White
cordel_collection (spectrum2), 202611 parts
Acrylic medium, rubber, pigment, spray paint, vinyl, screen mesh, polyethylene film
Aluminum artist’s frame
32 x 226.8 cm
12.6 x 89.3 inches -
Austin Martin White
ferris wheel, 2024Ink, watercolor and tempera on Arches 140
Paper dimensions:
220.5 x 223.5 cm / 86.8 x 88 inches
Framed dimensions:
232.4 x 231.1 cm / 91.5 x 91 inches -
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WorksOpen a larger version of the following image in a popup:
Installation view, Austin Martin White, 'Last Dance', Capitain Petzel, 2022
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup:
In The Rubber Coils. Scene - The Congo ‚Free‘ State, Linley Sambourne depicts King Leopold II of Belgium as a snake entangling a congolese rubber collector / published in 1906
Austin Martin White
In the rubber coils, 2020Burlap, rubber, pigment, vinyl and screen mesh109 x 68.5 cm
42.9 x 27 inchesB-AMWHITE-.22-0007Further images
For White, colonial image production is entangled with a contemporary collective memory as well as the reproduction of racist power dynamics. This play of references permeating throughout White’s artistic practice...For White, colonial image production is entangled with a contemporary collective memory as well as the reproduction of racist power dynamics. This play of references permeating throughout White’s artistic practice operates like active traces that continuously recur in the past and influence the present. Jacques Derrida termed this phenomenon hauntology in 1993. Through the concept of hauntology, the colonial past can be imagined as a ghost, a spectre, that haunts history, and can thus help perceive the persistence of today’s coloniality. For White, this concept holds the key to his archival research and its later decolonial and deconstructive undoing.Exhibitions-
Austin Martin White
The lie, the larp andthe lusophile 10 September — 17 October 2026Explore -
Sweet Sixteen
Celebrating 16 years of Capitain Petzel 7 June — 3 August 2024On the occasion of Capitain Petzel’s sixteenth anniversary, the gallery is excited to present Sweet Sixteen , a group exhibition celebrating the artists who have been integral to its program...Explore -
Austin Martin White
Last Dance 16 September — 22 October 2022It’s all too much, really. There are credit cards to pay down, rent to cough up—never mind the wildfires and the mass shootings. A sense of pressure is building, impossible...Explore
External ExhibitionsOverflow, Afterglow: New York in Chromatic Figuration, 2024
The Jewish Museum, New York
Press-
Do Not Research: "Pieter Schoolwerth & Austin Martin White in Conversation"
Pieter Schoolwerth, Austin Martin White, 22 October 2025 -
Impulse: "Face to Face: September 2025" (Austin Martin White)
Zorica Colic, 30 September 2025 -
TEXTE ZUR KUNST: "Mnemosyne in Neon" (Austin Martin White)
Julia Modes, 30 December 2022 -
Artforum: "Austin Martin White"
Martin Herbert, 1 December 2022 -
Flash Art: "Austin Martin White 'Last Dance' Capitain Petzel / Berlin"
Philipp Hindahl, 20 October 2022 -
032c: "SMASHED COLLARBONES: Berlin Art Week 2022" (Austin Martin White)
Claire Koron Elat, 27 September 2022 -
Welt am Sonntag: "Das Beste ihrer Art: Austin Martin White Bei Capitain Petzel"
17 September 2022
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